In a compromise this week, Tennessee’s legislature has approved low-THC oil in medicinal cannabis.
The move come after failing to pass a wider-raging medical cannabis decriminalization bill in the state, but the Tennessee legislature will allow for a watered down bill instead.
The bill had passed six specially called House committees and a Senate committee on Tuesday, one of the final days of the legislative session.
It then narrowly passed the Senate on a vote of 20-12, with some members who voted against arguing the legislation did not go far enough. Then on Wednesday the bill passed 74-17 in the House.
The legislature is creating a commission of nine members who will be appointed by the House and Senate speakers and Gov. Bill Lee. The commission will study the legalization of medical marijuana ahead of the federal government reclassifying marijuana on the Drug Enforcement Administration’s drug schedule.
“We pared that down as much as we could,” said bill sponsor Sen. Ferrell Haile, R-Gallatin. Haile is responding to a small portion of a wider-ranging piece of legislation by Sen. Becky Massey, R-Knoxville, and Rep. Bryan Terry, R-Murfreesboro.
“Not everybody is happy with the compromise,” Haile said during the Senate finance committee.
The bill allows for patients with nine debilitating illnesses to possess cannabis oil that consists of 0.9% or less THC, the primary psychoactive component of marijuana. That amount constitutes a low dose of THC, slightly above the current legal amount of 0.3% for hemp oil.
The patients will have to get a letter from a doctor, which will be valid only for six months at a time, that confirms they have one of the conditions and that other conventional methods of treatment have already been tried.
The illnesses listed in the bill include Alzheimer’s disease; ALS; cancer diagnosed as end stage; inflammatory bowel disease, including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis; epilepsy or seizures; multiple sclerosis; Parkinson’s disease; HIV or AIDS; and sickle cell disease.
